New Horizon (textbook)

New Horizon is an English language textbook used by junior high school students in Japan. It first came out in 1966.^[1] It is published by Tokyo Shoseki. There are three volumes, one for each of the three years of school. As of 2003, around 40% of schools were using New Horizon as their English text book^[2].

Characters

There are several characters whose adventures centered around the fictional Wakaba Junior High School inspire the books' grammar and vocabulary lessons. These characters, updated in the revised 2006 edition of the text, are as follows:

• Judy Brown - An African-American girl from New York.
• Emi Ito (伊藤 絵美 Itō Emi) - A young Japanese girl.
• Shin Tanaka (田中 慎 Tanaka Shin) - A young Japanese boy.
• Mike Davis - A young Australian.
• Lisa - Ms Green's sister who lives in Toronto, Canada.
• Koji (浩司 Kōji) - Lisa's Japanese husband.
• Bill - Ms. Green's little brother.
• Bin - Koji's Chinese friend.

Their teachers are a Canadian ALT named Ann Green and Kazuko Sato (佐藤 和子 Satō Kazuko), a Japanese woman who is mostly ignored by the authors. The 2006 edition has only minor changes from the previous edition; e.g., there are T-shirts on sale instead of shoes, and the kids visit Canada instead of Australia.

See also

• English Text books in use in Japan
  • SunShine
  • New Crown
  • Total English

References

1. ^ "Tosho Bunko The Textbook Library". http://bnkweb.tosho-bunko.jp/srchidx.asp. 
2. ^ What is the Problem of English Education Japan? (page 4)

External links

• Englipedia
• Tokyo Shoseki publishing company (Japanese)